Prologue
The day went very dark for me. That morning, my mom found out I'm into guys all this time, after she picked up a phone from a fellow gay friend of mine. He asked if I wanted to join his town's first pride parade. I have a similar voice to my mom, even though I'm a male, so she pretended to be me, and asked more about my crushes and stuffs. I had always lied to her about every suspicion she had, but this time it was too messy to get out from. Right when I woke up and went to get breakfast, she asked me right away about it. I went speechless for ten seconds, which pretty much confirmed it. Feeling very awkward, I immediately checked my phone and pretended to panic about getting late to school, ignoring her follow up questions. My heart was thumping really fast and I sprang toward the streets just to not give her any chance to not talk about it. While running, I bumped to a hooded boy on the streets. I apologized to him several times without seeing his face since my eyes basically went red from crying.
"I'm fine, but... are you okay?" he asked looking concerned.
Embarassed about the whole thing, I ignored him without realizing some of the school books I hugged fell there. About two to three blocks of walking later, I calmed myself, despite of course still feeling upset. I played future possible scenarios in my head when I got home later. Every one of them didn't sound good at all. I was so out of it, I didn't even realize I arrived at school already. I went to my lockers, put in some books that wasn't used during first period. That was when I finally realized some of my books were missing. And one of them was my homework papers folder for the first period. I panicked but I didn't have any choice but to just give up. I went to class and hoped for the less worst thing to happen. But of course, the worst thing happened. As the teacher asked for everyone homework, she realized I was the only one who didn't pass his homework.
"It is very unusual for you to not do your homework Mr. Ueno," she called me out.
"I did it, but I lost it during my walk to school Miss Blake," I tried to explain, "I'm sorry."
"Excuses will only get you far, but not enough Mr. Ueno."
"Well I'm not lying, Miss Blake. That's just what happened!"
"Whatever it is, I'll give you an additional homework to be passed tomorrow."
"Well thank you Miss Blake," I replied sarcastically with a quite raised voice. "I never knew you could be such a pain in the ass," I thought to myself.
My classmates all looked at me shocked and the classroom when silent. I didn't pick it up right away, but when I did, I realized my thoughts just slipped into my mouth. Miss Blake's eyes were opened really wide, never expecting to hear it from one of her favorite students.
"I don't know what happened to you, that made you this impolite, Mr. Ueno," her voice seem shaking," But for now I'm giving you detention for the rest of today's periods."
I didn't know what to reply to her from the guilt. I packed my things as quickly as I could, and grabbed the slip.
"I'm sorry," I told her quietly while putting my head down, not wanting to see her face head on.
I went to the detention room for the first time in all my sophomore years, with every worst feeling in the world. Out of all days, everything just had to happen today. It just had to be the worst day of my life. Right as I was thinking that, I saw the most dislikable guys at my school chatting to themselves in the room. I pretended not to notice them and just sat on the seat as far away from them. They are people who teased me the most for every little side of me, which screams like a tasty meat for their hunger of putting people down.
"Yo, the lanky gay Asian is here," Joe, the gang leader, shouted at me, "Even a person as lame as you could end up here, huh?"
I ignored him.
"Finally get caught of fondling guys I guess," the other person added, which made them went hysterical.
"Too bad he can't get any of us. Even among his kind of people he must be the worst," Joe teased.
I tried to ignore them the rest of the day. I only got rest during breaks and lunch. I got lucky though. This school has zero violence policy. But of course, even with those kind of rules, some students still would made fun of the others. If it were some any other school, I'd probably ended up with some bruises already. I dreaded the thought of meeting them again. But alas, I had to come back to the detention room. While putting up with their noises, I scratched some things just to fill the time. I'm not the studious type of person, but I never try to do anything that is not expected of a student to do either. As what those people said, I'm lanky as hell. I also had a weak body, which would ache even for the shortest time of jogging routines. I would often think of myself as the worst among my kind too. So the points they said were not too far off. There is really nothing attractive I could pick up from myself at all. Suddenly, the end of the school came without me even realizing it. I quickly sprang toward the exit.
"Hey, we are not done with you yet mopey face!" Joe shouted at me.
I rolled my eyes and turned to him at the door and gives him the smuggest smile I ever made. It just made them more enraged. They decided this was the right day to beat me up outside the school, so they followed me on my way home. I hoped for things like this to not happen that day because the last thing I wanted to go to is my house. But of course it had to be on the same day too. It's not long until they caught up to me and pinned me down at the alley.
"What is that funky face about, you motherf*cking fag?" Joe furiously asked.
"I don't know. What do you think?" I dared him. I knew that the situation wouldn't escalate to be any worse than it already was, so I decided to just give it off, "Do you like it? You want me to do it every day to you, Joey?"
"This b*tch just don't know when to stop huh?"
He then grabbed my collar and two of his friends pin down my hands. I squirmed but what could this weak body do? I notice one of them brought out a cigarette and lit it up. I knew what would happen. I squirmed even more and tried everything I could to get out of there. But it was no use.
"Maybe a burn scar on your chest would teach you one or two," Joe smiled, really excited to make me be scared even more.
They then unbuttoned my shirt, exposing my upper body to be played with. As the cigarette went closer, I closed my eyes, preparing for the pain. I tried to think of other things to compensate for the pain but all I see is black. I then think to myself, "If only I could push this guy away from me."
Suddenly I heard a thump on the ground and some 'wha?' around me. And then it went silent. No more laughing, no more shouting. Just silence. As I opened my eyes, I saw Joe lying on the ground on his back with a shocked face. I was confused. "How could he fell that far off", I asked myself in my head. The others let go of me and went to Joe to help. I was so confused.
"It can't be...," I whispered.
As I tried to put things together, one of them came to me and asked, "What the f*ck did you just do?"
Didn't want to be beaten, I thought of myself again, "I want this guy to fly off, away from me." And he did. He bounced high and far and crashed the garbage bin on the alley. My eyes opened as wide as I could, and so were the rest of them. Wanting to use the moment of shock, and just to avoid any suspicion, I buttoned my shirt back, picked up my things and ran away. Joe and his gang didn't chase me or call me, probably being scared or weirded out by what just happened. My head went spinning. I was confused and didn't know what I just did.
Did I always have them?
As I was lost in my own thoughts, a random guy bumped me on the sidewalk. Because I wasn't prepared for it and strong enough to hold the impact, my body just went flying toward the road. It took me some moments and some shoutings from the bystander to stand up. Right when I stood, a huge fire truck went full speed to me, just seconds away from me. My mind went blank. I couldn't think of anything and just went frozen. Suddenly, something or someone grabbed me away and brought me swinging high from the road. I thought I was already hit by the truck and it was a grim reaper, snatching my soul to bring it to Hades or some sort. I tried to look at the person's clothes to confirm it but it was red and blue, with webbing patterns on them.
"Don't tell me...," I said. As I looked up, my guess turned out to be right, "S-S-SPIDERMAN!!!???"
"Yeah? What's up?" he said, half serious about it.
He then put me on top of an apartment building gently, and tried to sit me down. I just looked at him, trying to absorb every informations I could get to confirm it was real and not an afterlife dream. I unknowingly touch his face, perhaps even slapping him a bit, and then his shoulder and the spider emblem on his chest. I pinched the suit and stretch it. It was really him.
"Ha. Now you believe it is real? And that you just almost died?" he said jokingly, "You're lucky I was just roaming around without any bad guy chasing. You could've died, dude!"
"W-well I'm sorry, b-but it just happened suddenly and after things that just happened the whole day...," I stopped. I choked. I remembered the unpleasant things that just happened to me and I almost ended up with some scars on my skin. And that I just did the most random thing in the world. Suddenly, my tears welled up and I sobbed.
"Wow, hey. I-I-I think it must be your things that you just left on the streets right?" he was confused and tried to process the whole thing, "P-please stop crying, I'll take them now, okay? Just wait here!"
My tears got sucked right back to my eyes, after it suddenly came to me. I, a 15 years old guy, just cried in front of Spider-man. My face went red. And soon the depression turned into massive embarrassment. Then the hero swung right back at me with my bag and my books.
"Sorry I couldn't save some of your books and your phone," he genuinely sounded like he was feeling guilty about it.
"Oh. It's okay.... It's not your fault," my voice sounded so quiet that I could even barely hear it myself, "Thanks though. For saving me there."
"Ah it's nothing," he assured me, "You might want to watch where you are going though. You seem to always bumped into people."
"Always...?" I was puzzled for a second until I realized that the boy I bumped this morning was probably him, "It was you? The boy from this morning? I couldn't remember your face though."
I was kind of disappointed.
"I bet. You were tearing up last time," he sat next to me, "Why were you crying? Is it that bad?"
"It was bad. But to think that you just saw me crying is embarrassing," I told him, "Someone in this age, still crying."
"H-hey don't feel that way!" Spider-Man panicked, "I don't judge. Care to tell me what happened?"
I looked at him with a shocked face from this fact. Spider-Man asked me about my bad day?
"Sorry! I didn't mean to be nosey," he said to me.
"No it's just. You really want to know?"
He nodded.
"Like really really?"
"May I know?" he asked me, turning his whole body to me to listen.
I was surprised at this man's actions. I knew that he was all nice. But to want to know about a lower-than-basic guy like me? He must be super nice in real life. I then told him things which made my day super bad, leaving the details about the newfound powers I got. He was mostly quiet, but responded with some short words like oh's and ah's and I see's. This was the first time I told anyone this much about me. It felt nice and comforting. He also told me about the bad days he got. We barely noticed it, but it was almost night time when we finished talking. It was only stopped by a call. It was from his boss or something probably.
"Yeah? N-n-no Mr. Stark. Nothing very serious happened. Just doing my friendly-neighborhood stuff," he excitedly answered, "Now? Okay! I'll be there as fast as I can, Mr. Stark. 2 minutes? Isn't that-"
"Are you being summoned back?" I asked him, smiling.
"Yeah. Wow it's already nighttime!" he exclaimed, pretending to be shocked.
"Thank you, Spider-man," I told him like a kid, "Thanks for everything."
"Ahaha it's my job, no?" he replied shyly, scratching his head, "But hey. Don't be afraid to go home. I know it's going to be just fine."
I smiled, assured of what he said. He was preparing to swing off when he suddenly stopped and turned back at me.
"I didn't catch your name yet, may I know?"
"It's Aoi. Ueno Aoi."
"Can I call you 'blue'?"
"Sure," I said to him, quite surprised he knew what it meant, "You could call me whatever you want, um... may I know your name too?"
"Uh... I wear a mask for a reason, if you notice." he refused to give his real name.
"Then may I call you Mr. Webs?"
"Webs do sound nice too though! I'll take it!" we both laughed.
"Bye beautiful!" he said it as he went, caught me off-guard. I've never been called beautiful, or handsome, or cute, or anything nice by a random guy, or any guy for that matter. Even if only for a little while, it made me feet like something. Like I'm not a complete trash. It upped my confidence even for a little bit. I knew he won't remember me at all in less than an hour, but for that moment, it made all the bad days went away. I watched him swung away from the back, and wished to meet him again someday.
"Bye, Spider-man!" I said quietly, just to myself.
